The incident of the lighted room and the shadow on the ceiling were clear to him now.

A quarrel of which there was a witness, a quarrel all to the credit of Garratt Skinner since it arose from his determination to hinder Walter Hine from poisoning himself with drugs--at least, that is how the evidence would work out; the quarrel continued in Walter Hine's bedroom, whither Garratt Skinner had accompanied his visitor, a struggle begun for the possession of the drug, begun by a man half crazy for want of it, a blow in self-defence delivered by Garratt Skinner, perhaps a fall from the window--that is how Chayne read the story of that night, as fashioned by the ingenuity of Garratt Skinner.
But on one point he was still perplexed.

The story had not been told out to its end that night: there had come an unexpected shout, which had interrupted it, and indeed forever had prevented its completion on that spot.

But why had it not been completed afterward, during the next few months, somewhere else?
It had not been completed.

For here was Sylvia with all her fears allayed, continuing the story of those months.
"But violence was not the only change in Walter Hine.